There is hardly anything new about the mess that sometimes surrounds land transactions in Accra. Land is bought, sold and resold, sometimes with impressive-looking documents and sometimes with little more than assurances from the person holding himself out as the owner. Two people may even receive documents purporting to give them an interest in the same piece of land.
It is a curious situation in a jurisdiction where Greater Accra has long operated under a land title registration regime designed to bring greater certainty to ownership and transactions in land. The Lands Commission maintains registers and facilities for searches, title registration and the registration of interests in land. Yet land disputes and allegations of fraudulent alienation continue to feature in our courts.
The events at Laboma have now placed another version of that familiar problem before the public, although from a rather different angle. The government has described portions of the Kpeshie Lagoon area as a protected buffer zone and says that parts of what was once a mangrove-covered wetland and natural water-retention basin were reclaimed, filled and subsequently developed. On 13 September 2026, the Post Flood Mitigation Task Force demolished structures identified within the protected buffer zone after occupants had been given 21 days to vacate.
But if the affected land was indeed within a protected lagoon buffer zone and unavailable for the private developments that eventually occupied it, who sold it to the people who bought it? And for those who paid for it, what happens to their money now that reality has dawned?
Illegal Sale of Land and Remedies
A person who buys land ordinarily expects that the person selling it has an interest capable of being transferred. That expectation becomes particularly important where the purchaser has paid substantial sums, obtained documentation and proceeded to develop the property.
A fundamental principle in the law of property is that a person cannot transfer a better title than he possesses. A person who has no interest in land, or no authority to sell it, cannot ordinarily pass an interest which he does not have. Where a person nevertheless purports to sell land without having the right to do so, the consequences can fall heavily on the vendor. Depending on the facts and the nature of the transaction, a purchaser may have a claim for recovery of the purchase price, interest and even damages, particularly where the vendor knowingly represented that he had an interest capable of being transferred.
The recent decision in Benjamin v Tetteh & 8 Others [2026] GHAHC 14 provides a useful illustration. The plaintiff had acquired land from persons who represented themselves as having an interest in the property. He paid for the land and documentation and proceeded to develop it. The court ultimately found that the persons who sold the land knew that they had no interest in it at the time of the sale and held that their conduct amounted to fraud. The vendors were ordered to refund the purchase price and also to pay damages and interest.
The importance of the decision for the Laboma situation is not that every person who purchased land there is automatically entitled to a refund or damages. That would go too far. The significance lies in the principle that the purchaser’s legal remedies may lie against the person who purported to sell the land in the first place.
Knowledge of the Illegality Matters
There is, however, an important qualification. The law cannot be expected to treat an innocent purchaser in exactly the same way as a person who knowingly participated in an unlawful transaction. The courts may be reluctant to assist a person who knowingly participated in illegality to recover from the consequences of that transaction.
Turning to the Laboma situation, a purchaser who genuinely believed that he was acquiring legitimate land may have a basis for pursuing the person who sold it to him if the evidence establishes fraud or another actionable wrong. A purchaser who knew that the land was protected, knew that the proposed development was prohibited, or deliberately participated in circumventing the law may face a very different outcome.
It would be too simplistic to say that every person whose structure was demolished was an innocent victim who must be compensated. It would be equally simplistic to assume that every purchaser knowingly acquired prohibited land.
The facts of each transaction would matter.
And What About the Taxes and Levies?
Some affected persons have reportedly pointed to the taxes, rates and other levies they paid to the government as evidence that their presence and businesses had some form of official recognition.
There is an understandable intuition behind that argument. If a person has been operating a business for years, paying taxes and rates along the way, it may seem strange for the same State to later treat the underlying development as unlawful.
But taxation answers a different legal question. The fact that income is taxable does not necessarily mean that the activity generating that income is lawful. Indeed, the taxation of income from unlawful activities is recognised in other jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and the United States. The fact that the State imposes a tax on income says little about whether the taxpayer has good title to the property from which the income was generated or has complied with planning and environmental requirements.
A property rate is not a conveyance. A business levy is not planning permission. Payment of tax on business income does not amount to a grant of land.
Who Then Bears the Loss?
The demolition of the structures at Laboma may have brought an end to the physical development. For some purchasers, however, the more difficult legal question may only have begun.
If the land was indeed within a protected buffer zone and could not lawfully have been made available for the developments that occurred there, the purchaser who lost his investment may need to look first to the person from whom he acquired the land.
Was there a valid interest to sell? Did the vendor have authority to alienate it? What representations were made to the purchaser? Was the purchaser deceived, or did he knowingly participate in an unlawful transaction? Those questions will determine whether the purchaser has a viable claim and against whom.
Benjamin v Tetteh demonstrates that the law can provide a remedy where a vendor knowingly sells land in which he has no interest. But the law also has little sympathy for a claimant seeking to recover from an illegality in which he knowingly participated.
A person who sells land must have the right to sell it. A person who buys land must also take reasonable steps to know what he is buying. And the payment of taxes or levies cannot, by itself, turn an unlawful transaction into a lawful one.
Where a purchaser was genuinely deceived, the demolition may destroy the property but need not necessarily destroy every legal remedy available to him.
